International and electronic Immortal

Death of the “local” customer

As I have discussed before, the e-book revolution sort of took me by surprise.  I still like paper books, but I’m coming to realize that every day I cling to them is another day for me to look like a guy on horseback on a freeway.

And I’m still trying to get a grip on who the demographic is for Immortal. So far I’ve settled on: people who read sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fiction, or any combination thereof; people who like vampires; dudes.  I am now adding “People who do all of their reading on the Kindle” to the list.

Then there are the international buyers.  Since I’ve done nearly all of my promoting online– on Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads, mainly– it’s only reasonable to expect that some of the people I interest in the novel are going to be people outside of the United States.

So it would have been awesome if I had expected it.

Poll

What would be great is if I could go to the Powers That Be with numbers, rather than anecdotes.  I would also be deeply curious to see how embedded the Kindle has become to the reading world, and whether I really am a horseman on a highway.  Plus, I found this really cool poll option in my WordPress toolbar, and I couldn’t resist trying it out.

[polldaddy poll=4030655]

[Note: I know not everyone will be buying the book, and I’m okay with that.  Should you be struck with the urge to vote “Other” and fill in the box with some variant of “You Suck”… I understand.  I was young once too.]

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No Comments

  1. Dušan on November 16, 2010 at 9:05 am

    Gene, check this site out (tagline=Every day an author and a publisher lose a sale. These are the stories why.):
    http://lostbooksales.com/

  2. Reine on November 20, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    I’ll always prefer a paper book over an e-book, but the main problem for me is access to said book. No resellers in the US I’ve found so far will deliver to Europe, which leaves us waiting for a more local release. For us, the e-book is usually a great alternative.

    But, the Kindle is another hurdle for e-books, as it’s so far only sold in the US and the UK, thus again limiting sales to those two countries.

    For me it’s always a time-consuming (and sometimes fun) hunt, finding a site that looks and feels reputable, and sells the e-book I’m after in a format I want. And making sure that even though it’s an e-book they “deliver” to my country.

    For me, personally, the best formats are RTF, epub and mobi. And out of those, mobi is the only one I know that’ll support DRM.

    As the author, it’s a slippery road of getting the book out to as many people as possible, and still getting paid. A non-DRM book will make its way out to public download sites sooner or later, and perhaps most will read it, enjoy it, and buy the paper book. But most probably won’t. Buy it, that is.

    • genedoucette on November 20, 2010 at 7:07 pm

      When it does debut electronically it won’t be only for the Kindle, so there is hope there. And a distributor is in the future…

  3. […] …and answer awkward questions about where the ebook version was. […]

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